Tomato Rice Soup
by TiTivillus
Summary: Mary reconnects with her boys. Follows the events of 11x23 'Alpha and Omega'. Family Feels. Hurt/Comfort. Brother Feels.


**Title:** Tomato Rice Soup

 **Summary:** Mary reconnects with her boys. Follows the events of 11x23 'Alpha and Omega'. Family Feels. Brotherly Schmoop.

 **Warnings:** Spoilers up to episode 11x23 'Alpha and Omega'.

 **Rating:** Rated T for bad language, mentions of past abuse, descriptions of violence and injuries.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own the show or any of its characters.

 **Author's note:** This isn't my usual style, but I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Mother (muhth-er)

(n) a person who loves unconditionally; a character builder and heart healer; the maker and keeper of wonderful memories; a person much loved and greatly admired.

* * *

Mary's whole body is shaking, tip to toe. Her heart is beating so fast she's positive that it will beat a hole through her chest and spill out on to the ground beneath her bare feet.

Her knees are shaky and cold sweat is slowly running down the curve of her spine.

It takes mental power just to put one foot in front of the other.

"Help," her own voice sounds foreign to her, raspy and hoarse like she has forgotten how to use it.

Her tongue is leaden and her mind is racing with too many thoughts, none of which she can fully comprehend.

Above all, is the absolute certainty that she should not be here. That she should not be alive.

A loud rustle from the bushes nearby causes her to stop dead in her tracks and then he's there, standing in the clearing with his mouth agape.

Tall and with his shoulders squared, green eyes flashing vibrantly in the relative darkness of the woods.

She takes one look at him and knows.

" _Mom?_ "

 **ooOoo**

On the day Dean is born, John spends hours just holding him.

There's a look of peacefulness on John's face, a sparkle of pride in his eyes as he cradles his first-born in his large hands and rocks him to sleep for the very first time.

He hums a soft tune under his breath, just the faraway ghost of a lullaby his own father used to sing to him and Dean's features smooth out in blissful serenity, tiny baby fingers going lax against the soft fabric of John's flannel.

Mary watches them from afar, wondering what she'd ever done to deserve such happiness.

 **ooOoo**

Maybe it's a maternal instinct or maybe it's the way he looks at her, eyes filled with enough pain to drown the whole world in it.

"Dean?"

She blinks and then he's there, gathering her up in his strong arms and crushing her to his chest like he has no intention to ever let go.

There is something warm in his hold, something that feels right like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

She squeezes him back, hesitantly at first, then with a life-shattering urgency, tangles her fingers in the soft hair at the base of his neck and soaks in the feeling of family, of home.

" _Dean._ "

 **ooOoo**

Dean is a quiet child.

It worries her at first because the babies on TV are always wailing until their chubby little cheeks turn a bright shade of red, tears rolling unbidden down their cheeks.

Dean only cries when he wants to be held or when he's hungry.

And even then, he usually doesn't take long to quiet down.

"It's not normal," she says one night, chest tight with worry. "What if something's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong with him," John presses a reassuring kiss to her forehead. "He's a trooper. Probably just knows you need your sleep."

John means it as a joke.

There's no way their one-week-old son knows how exhausted she still feels after the C-section.

The doctor prescribed pills against the pain but Mary isn't taking them.

She's nursing.

"I'm his mother," she frowns. "I don't want him to hold back on his feelings around me."

John lets out a soft sigh. "He's only six days old, Mare. I'm sure it's nothing."

Dean's tiny fingers curl around her thumb as he peers up at her with bright eyes.

His legs kick out in a jagged motion like he's looking for the familiar resistance of a womb and finding nothing but air.

She peers down into his eyes and brushes her fingers through his downy hair. "It's okay, angel. You can cry if you want… I'll always be there for you."

 **ooOoo**

"Are you _real_?"

They are both staring at each other wide-eyed and unblinking, gaze clouded by a mist of wayward memories and sheer disbelief.

"I don't…" She runs a hand over her own chest, feeling the soft fabric of the nightgown beneath, the frantic beating of her own heart. "I-I think so… yes."

Dean's face drains of all color then, his lips tremble and he can't seem to look away from her. His emerald green eyes are swimming with tears. "You're not a—"

"A Ghost?" She hazards, remembering that there used to be a test for these things, but unable to come up with the details. "I don't think so."

Dean just stares at her, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

She shakes her head, still shell-shocked by it all.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

She remembers scalding heat and airways clogged with cinder. She remembers Sam's broken cries rising up to a crescendo as the nursery around him went up in flames.

She remembers the crushing, all-consuming feeling of guilt at having condemned her son to evil and the expression of absolute horror on John's face when he looked up at her mangled body on the remembered pain, so vivid that it burned through her like scalding hot water.

"The night I died... Kansas."

Dean's eyes glaze over. "Right," he clears his throat and then looks around, scanning the area with a practised ease that comes from years of experience.

She notices his guarded posture, the stiff shoulders, the slight bulge at the back of his jeans that can only mean there's a weapon strapped to his back.

"Listen, I don't really have an explanation for this and I know it must all seem... _crazy_ to you. But we're gonna figure this out, okay? I promise."

She nods, more for his sake than her own.

John always needed a purpose when he was confused or nervous: a new goal, a set of instructions, something to ground himself with.

"I think I've seen a creek a few yards downhill from here."

"Alright, good, that's… that's good. I'm gonna go and scan the area. You take this," he hands her a pearl-handled gun and takes a shaky breath, determination settling on his features.

"Dean, wait," she clasps his fingers with her own and waits until he looks at her.

She wants to say something but her throat closes up around thirty years' worth of unspoken grief.

His eyes are the same vibrant color they had been when he was a kid. The shade of the ocean on a stormy day, mossy green with bright swirls of amber in them.

She can see a lot of herself in his features and even more of John in his character.

"Later," he gives her a soft smile, wide and so full of gratitude that it takes her breath away. "Let's get out of here first, okay? Then we talk."

 **ooOoo**

"Are you mad at daddy?" Dean is sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, his little legs hanging off into the air as he looks up at her with watery eyes.

Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun and there's batter sticking to her fingers from where she's trying to knead the dough for her apple pie.

"What?" she falters, heart stumbling to an abrupt heart in her chest.

"No baby, why would you think that?" she wipes her hands off on her apron and leans over to cup Dean's cheek with her palm.

He's coiled tight and his lips are trembling and Mary's heart breaks a little at the sight of her little sunshine in distress. "Dean, why would you think that, honey? I love your daddy."

"Y-your voices were real loud," his voice is shaky and small. "I heard daddy yelling."

The words are like a slap in her face and she wants to curse at herself for being so careless.

John had come home late from work for the fourth time this week.

She was five weeks pregnant with their second child and John didn't even know it yet. They barely saw each other these days.

They barely saw each other these days.

"Aww, Dean," she pulls him into her arms. "We didn't mean to scare you…"

"Did I make you angry?" Dean rubs at his eyes, his eyes all blotchy and red. "I'm sorry, mommy. I'm gonna be a good boy, I promise."

Mary swallows and hugs him closer to her chest, blinking tears from her own eyes.

She tells herself that she will never fight with John in front of Dean again.

He's too quick to blame himself for the things he doesn't even understand yet.

Too sensitive.

 **ooOoo**

"You kept the car?" Mary lets her eyes wander over the sleek black hood of the Impala, fingers ghosting over the varnish with something akin to reverence.

It's a taste of familiarity in a foreign world.

"Baby's part of the family," Dean pats the hood almost lovingly before getting in. "Dad would have never given her up. Not after you…" he stops himself just in time.

"After what happened to you."

"He loved that damn car," she takes a deep breath, lets the smell of leather fill her lungs and nostrils, a wave of memories flooding her mind and a fond little smile tugging at her lips.

John drove her to the hospital in this car when she was in labor, shooting her frantic glances and apologizing for every damn pothole he hit on the way.

He had held her hand the entire time on the way there.

"Your father… is he—" she can't look at Dean when she asks, because deep down inside she knows the answer already.

Dean's jaw locks and his eyes fixate on a point in the distance. There's a long stretch of silence, filling the air between them until it becomes unbearable.

"I'm sorry," he finally says, voice heavy with grief and regret, like it's somehow his fault and Mary's heart splinters into a thousand pieces.

It shouldn't hurt as much as it does but somehow... the pain is unfathomable.

 **ooOoo**

"How about Daniel?" John suggests, rubbing soothing circles against her protruding belly. "We could call him Danny for short."

Dean is sitting on John's lap with a disapproving frown on his cute little face.

He's got his own little fingers pressed against his mother's belly, mirroring his father's gesture.

"You don't like the name, buddy?"

"No," Dean decides, scrunching his face up in disdain. "Danny always take my cra-cryons."

"Crayons, baby," Mary corrects softly, tousling Dean's soft bangs affectionately.

"He takes my crayons without asking," Dean finishes with a tiny storm cloud on his face.

Mary chuckles at so much sass. She's quite happy that Dean vetoed because the little Winchester family extension that's getting bigger and bigger in her belly with each passing day doesn't feel like a 'Daniel' at all.

"Well, we could always go with Robert," John suggests with a wiggle of his eyebrows and Mary rolls her eyes in mock exasperation. "Or Jimmy."

"We're not naming our son after a band member of Led Zeppelin," she says in a stern voice, but the amusement is still audible in her tone. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

He's laughing, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her belly and Mary's whole chest fills with warmth.

"Okay, okay… I got one," John finally says with a warm shine in his eyes, thumb brushing over the sensitive skin just below her belly button. "How about Samuel? After his grandfather."

Mary's eyes grow a little wet and her heart is overflowing with love for the man in front of her.

She opens her mouth to say something, but just in that moment the baby's foot lashes out and kicks her belly.

Dean's eyes grow impossibly wide and John's grin splits his face in half. "Did you feel that, Dean-o? That's your little brother in there, buddy. Did you feel him kick your hand?"

"I felt it, daddy!" Dean cheers, bouncing up and down the bed excitedly. "Can he do that again?"

Mary smiles through the pain, even as the kick had left her winded. She soothes a palm down her side in a calming gesture.

"Guess he made up his own mind about the name, huh?"

John huffs out a laugh. "Not even born yet and already making his own life choices. Something's telling me this one's going to be stubborn."

"He's going to be perfect," Mary says with conviction in her voice. She slides her own palm down over the curve of her stomach with a soft expression on her face, chest filling with a warmth and happiness that couldn't be described with words. "My perfect little Sammy."

 **ooOoo**

"C'mon Sammy, pick up your phone," Dean mutters under his breath when his fourth call goes to voicemail.

The fond, slightly concerned undertone in Dean's voice when he says his brother's name doesn't go unnoticed.

It's strangely endearing that he still uses the nickname, even after all these years.

Mary takes a shuddering breath, deciding to break the tension. "So Sam… he's okay?"

For a terrible second, her heart stands still.

Because losing John was one thing… but losing one of her boys without ever really having gotten to know them in the first place? She doesn't think she'd survive that.

"Yeah," Dean's smile is strained but unmistakably there when he answers. "Yeah, mom... Sam's great."

Then his expression grows serious again and he glances back down at his phone for what must have been the thousandth time.

A growing sensation of dread fills her mind and clutches at her heart. "Dean?"

He looks over at her, teeth digging down into his plush bottom lip.

He's undoubtedly handsome in the shine of the bypassing streetlights, but there is a weariness to his body, a guarded steel-front he puts up for the rest of the world that makes her cringe.

She's seen the way he checked the clip of his gun, the way he had ejected the magazine and re-inserted it with a skilled flick of his wrist.

She's noticed the way he walks, always keeping an eye on his surroundings, always wary.

And she's seen years' worth of grief and loss and pain in his expression.

She would take it all off of him in a second if she could.

"You and Sam… You're hunters, aren't you?"

 **ooOoo**

Her sons live in a bunker.

"Correction," Dean holds up a hand, wayward smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "It's a bat cave."

She can't help but grin a little at the way he says it, so much pride and excitement in his tone.

So Batman was still a thing then… maybe some stuff just never grows old.

She's beginning to see a lighter side of him, all charm and sassy bravado.

The cool morning wind causes Mary to shiver and Dean shrugs out of his jacket.

It's still warm when he drapes it over her shoulders. "We should probably get inside, you're shaking."

"Thank you," she deliberately brushes her fingers over his, even as they shake so hard she can move them.

The shakiness isn't all from the cold.

She's nervous about how Sam will react to her presence.

What if he doesn't recognise her?

What if he resents her for having abandoned him?

What if she looks into the eyes of her own flesh and blood, her little angel, and sees nothing but a stranger in the depth of his hazel pools?

Dean squeezes her shoulder in reassurance as if he somehow knows what she's thinking.

"I know all of this… must seems a little crazy to you right now... But Sam turned out great, mom. Better than great. He's got his heart in the right spot and he's smart, and I mean _real_ smart. We're talking valedictorian, nerdy-to-boot, college-smarts here. Even got himself a full-ride to Stanford."

Her eyes water a bit at the revelation. It's not so much the fact that her little boy went to college that gets to her, as it is the absolute sense of failure at not having been there to witness her son's success.

If Dean notices the way her eyes start blinking tears from her eyes, he doesn't comment on it.

He seems to busy gushing about his little brother to notice anything that isn't Sam-related.

"He gets a bit emotional at times," Dean says with a fond sparkle in his eyes and Mary can't help but feel warmth blossom in her heart at the loving undertone in his words.

"Try not to freak out when he's going to crush you with his octopus arms. He's such a girl, I mean even his hair is pretty—"

"Dean," Mary curls her slender fingers around his wrist and squeezes, a soft smile on her pale lips. "Honey, you're rambling."

A flicker of a smile mars his features and he quickly averts his gaze, awkwardly clearing his throat.

"I'm sorry, it's just… you're gonna be so proud of him."

Mary cups Dean's cheek and smiles, conveying every bit of warmth she feels inside of her.

"I'm proud of you both."

 **ooOoo**

"Sam?" Dean holds the heavy door to the bunker open for her and Mary's eyes widen at the underground Winchester lair.

There are leather chairs and telescopes and all kinds of artifacts Mary wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole because life as a hunter has taught her better.

She can't let herself dwell on the fact that this is where her children live.

Meters below the ground, no daylight, no normalcy.

John had raised them to be hunters.

If he was still alive she would never let him hear the end of it.

"Sam?" Dean's voice is bouncing off the walls, echoing through the vast emptiness of the hallways.

"Sam? Cas? Where the hell ar—" Dean's voice suddenly breaks off and Mary knows that something must be terribly wrong when all the blood suddenly drains from his face, leaving him deathly pale as he stands on the foot of the staircase.

Mary follows his gaze and her breath catches in her throat when she sees it.

There's a gun on the floor in the map room.

And a tall man is lying crumpled and bleeding on the tiled floor next to it.

Mary doesn't dare to blink or breathe. She's perfectly still, hovering in place as if she was trapped in some sort of surreal nightmare.

Earlier that day, her greatest nightmare had been the thought that she might not recognize her own baby after all these years. Now she'd do just about anything not to know, with horrifying, dreadful certainty, that the man lying crumpled on the floor before them in a puddle of his own blood is Sam.

"Oh, god…" Dean breathes out before he regains his footing and bolts down the staircase. "Sam?!"

He takes two steps at a time, nearly tripping over one of the upturned chairs in his haste to get to his brother.

" _Sammy!_ " Dean lets out a raw cry; like somebody had buried a knife in his guts and twisted it. "No, no, no, no…"

Dean's voice cracks as he crouches beside his unconscious brother, carefully cradling Sam's ghostly pale face in his arms, lips already tinged a light shade of blue from loss of blood and shock.

Dea's hands are trembling as he lifts them up to the steadily flowing hole in his back; the stain on his flannel shirt blossoming around the wound where the bullet exited through his back.

"Sam!" he rasps out once again, working the kid's battered flannel off of his broad shoulders to examine the wound. "Dammit, Sam. What the hell did you do?"

"What happened?" Mary's voice is shaking, the words grating on the insides of her throat, but Dean isn't listening, all of his attention now trained on his younger brother.

Sam's eyes are closed, long lashes fanned out against high cheekbones and Dean is pressing shaking fingers against his throat, while his other hand is stroking soggy strands of hair back from Sam's sweaty forehead.

"Don't you freaking dare… This wasn't part of the deal, you hear me?" Dean yells through a veil of tears, shaking his brother's unresponsive body by the shoulders. CAS! Get your feathered ass back here, right this second, or I'll—"

" _Dean_ ," a third voice, deep and near catatonic, chimes in from the side, nearly causing Mary to have a heart-attack.

She whirls around to see a guy in a trench-coat standing next to her, doubled over by the waist and panting heavily. She's got no idea where he's coming from or how he managed to sneak up on her so fast, but it's enough of an incentive to finally rip her out of her rigor.

Before she knows it, she's fumbling for the gun Dean gave her earlier and pulling back the safety with an audible snap. "Get back or I'll shoot, I swear—"

"Mom, don't!" Dean barks at her from across the room, one shaky, blood-smeared hand lifted in a gesture of reassurance. "Don't, okay? I can't explain it right now, but Cas is… he's a friend."

"This is impossible," Cas deep blue eyes widen a little in shock as he takes in her appearance, head to toe. He looks at her like she's a ghost, which, in hindsight, probably isn't so far from the truth. "I don't understand—"

"Get your ass here and fix him!" Dean yells, propelling the other man, who is staggering under his own weight, into action.

Mary doesn't know who this Cas is and what he can do, but if there's one thing she's quite sure of, it's that Dean is delusional if he thinks anything short of a miracle can save Sam's life at this point.

There's blood everywhere, on Dean's hands as he frantically tries to stop the blood flow; on Sam's face, on the floor, spreading out around his head like some kind of paradox, crimson halo.

"Cas, _please_ —" Dean's shaking all over as he frantically cards his fingers through Sam's sweaty bangs, stubbornly stroking them back out of his eyes. "Do something. Save him."

There's a desperation to him, a level of complete, earth-shattering, devastating, soul-consuming love to the way Dean looks down at his brother's pale face, to the way his shaking fingers gently pat Sam's blood-specked cheek, that tells Mary more about her boys than anything else ever could have.

She realizes then and there, that it's not just Sam's life hanging in the balance.

 **ooOoo**

In a lot of ways, Sam is the exact opposite of Dean.

There's appearance for one thing.

His hair is thick and a rich shade of auburn whereDean's is a downy blond.

When he smiles up at them, there are tiny dimples creasing his cheeks and his skin is pale where Dean's is sun-kissed and freckled.

Somehow Mary knows that there is more to it than just the way they differ on the outside.

She can tell that Sammy is more fragile than his brother; that he needs more attention, needs to be handled more carefully than his brother.

The first few weeks after they bring him home are rough.

Sammy's shrill cries keep all three of them awake at night, robbing them of their much-needed sleep and driving them up the walls with exhaustion.

He's hard to calm down on his best day and sometimes John jokingly says it's because Mary was always so concerned about Dean being such a quiet baby- that somebody allowed themselves a crude joke on their behalf.

But she thinks it's just a character thing.

Her boys are different and she loves that about them. They are like two halves of a whole, complementing each other.

One night, when Sam's broken wails rip her out of the depths of yet another dream, her baby's cries are loud enough to wake Dean in the process.

She's not exactly sure how it happens- they always keep the baby phone at a low volume- but when she sits down with Sammy in the old wooden rocking chair, making low shushing noises, the door to the nursery gets opened, revealing Dean in his superman pajamas and with tousled hair.

His eyes are still heavy-lidded and he's got his favorite teddy bear clutched to his little chest, looking lost as he stood in the doorway. "Mommy?"

"Hey sweetheart," She gets up, still rocking the crying bundle in her arms even as she walked over to card her fingers through Dean's soft strands. "Did I wake you, baby? I'm sorry…"

"Is Sammy okay?"

She smiles at the way his little face scrunched up with concern; barely four years old and every bit as much the big brother she's hoped for him to become. "Yeah, sweetie. He's probably just hungry. Why don't you go back to bed? I'll come tuck you in, in a moment, alright?"

Dean frowns, wrinkling his nose in that adorable way that always gets her smiling. "He wants you to sing to him… he likes it when you sing."

Mary looks down into her sons' green eyes, wide and deep with a sense a sense of intuition that went far beyond the mental capabilities of a four-year-old.

"Do you think so?" she bounced Sammy on her hip, as his wails grew louder and a little angrier.

Dean gave her a gap-toothed smile and nodded.

"Do you want to sing him to sleep with me?" She carries Sam back to the rocking chair, patting her own lap and laughing a little when Dean practically pounced on her, nodding vigorously.

She tucks both her boys safely against her chest, swaying back and forth in the pale shine of the moonlight.

 _"Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better…"_

 **ooOoo**

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I think he should be okay for now," Dean says, running a trembling hand over his tired features.

There's congealed on his hands, on his flannel, beneath his fingernails and when his eyes catch sight of it, he sucks in a breath, looking chagrined.

"Cas… he stopped the internal bleeding," he gives back somewhat hesitantly and Mary instantly knows her oldest is keeping something from her.

She remembers the way Cas had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, standing right behind her on the staircase and looking like someone had hit him with a truck.

"This guy… he's not a Wiccan, is he?"

Because black magic isn't something she ever wants her boys to meddle with, hunter or not.

Dean gives her a small smile, eyes twinkling with something akin to amusement. "Not quite."

"Dean," Mary shoots her son a disapproving look. "What is he?"

"Would you believe me if I told you?"

She crosses her arms over her chest. "Try me."

Dean holds her gaze for a while. "Remember how you always told me angels were watching over me when I was a kid?"

She blinks, a little taken by surprise. "Yes, of course, I do, but what—"

"Turns out you were more right about that than you might have thought."

 **ooOoo**

"He's so tall," Mary smiles through a blur of bittersweet tears as she hesitantly cards her fingers through her younger son's thick mane. "So handsome."

"Well, I agree about the 'tall' part," Dean murmurs and Mary swats him playfully up the head. He laughs and shakes his head wistfully, working the congealed blood from Sam's chest with a washcloth. "He used to be scrawny as hell when we were kids. And then one day…"

"Growth spurt?" Mary smiles, picturing her boys as teenagers, Dean with his dirty blond spikes and stockier frame, probably turning heads and breaking hearts wherever he went and Sam… smaller, bonier, a little more awkward, but always shadowing his big brother.

"Yeah," Dean gently dabs at Sam's face with the washcloth, a shimmer of fondness in his eyes as his fingers gently brush over his brother's cheekbone.

The gesture is so tender, so loving in all its simplicity that Mary feels like she's got no right to watch.

She lowers her eyes, looking down to where she'd interwoven her own fingers with Sam's; long and bony, just like John's used to be.

"Dad always had this suspicion, you know, that Sam was going to grow taller than me one day," Dean continued with a soft smile on his face. "He used to say it was from all the rabbit food Sam ate."

"Do you have any pictures?" Mary asks after a moment. "Of when you were younger?"

"Yeah, actually," Dean turns to look around, rummaging through Sam's room for a minute before digging a dusty wooden box up from beneath Sam's bed. "It's probably not much, but there should be a couple of photos in there from our old house in Kansas."

"Thanks," Mary's hands are shaking as she opens the little golden clasp on the front.

What she sees inside when she opens it, causes her breath to hitch for a second, pulse speeding up.

There are pictures- frayed and dog-eared from having been looked at too many times.

Her two boys are staring back at her from the first one; Sam probably around eleven or twelve, while Dean is a bit older, grinning widely into the camera.

The second picture is of John with both of the boys and it's much older. Mary swallows and lets her fingertips glide over John's face.

"Here, that's a good one," Dean pulls out another picture from the stack. It shows Sam and Dean at a table, Dean with his head tossed back in laughter and Sam grinning up at his older brother like he'd hung the moon and stars.

Mary's throat clogs up when she spots a wedding band beneath the stack of pictures, flashing and gleaming from having been polished too many times.

It's John's, she realizes, heart sinking in her chest.

There's other stuff, too.

A black velvet box with an engagement ring that looks like it had never been worn.

A funny looking amulet carved out of wood.

A pamphlet from a retirement home.

A battered looking baseball.

A deck of poker cards.

A horned little penchant on a leather cord.

Mary touches every object in the box, running her fingers reverently over the few prized possessions Sam had gathered over the years like the objects could somehow come to life and tell her the story of her son's lives.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice suddenly turns up a notch and Mary looked up to find Dean hovering over Sam's body.

With one of his large palms gently cradling Sam's face and the other one buried in his brother's hair, Dean gives him a small jostle. "Hey, you with me?"

Sam's lids flutter and he lets out a soft groan in response. "Hey, buddy, open those shiny peepers for us, huh? There's someone who'd like to take a look at you."

Mary smiles and squeezes Sam's lax fingers with her own.

Sam's eyes are beautiful when he finally opens them to the world around him.

From under his unkempt and sweaty hair, they peek at Dean in shades of hazel and honey, shining bright like sunlight on polished stone.

"Sammy?" Dean says, voice raw with emotion and Sam just continues to stare up at him, face scrunched up in painful disbelief and eyes instantly welling with tears.

" _D-dean?_ "

"Hey, kiddo," Dean gives back with a reassuring smile. "Long time no see, huh?"

That's all he needs to say before Sam shoots up from the mattress and throws his long arms around Dean in a bruising hug, clutching fistfuls of the older man's flannel as if he was holding on to a lifeline. "What are you- how did you— I thought you were—"

"I know, kiddo, I'm sorry," Dean returns the hug with just as much fervor, eyes squeezed shut as he holds Sam tight and Mary can't help but think that she must have missed out on something big here, even bigger than whatever had happened to Sam before they found him.

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, just holding each other like it was the end of days.

Then Dean clears his throat, patting Sam's back as he slowly withdraws from the embrace.

"C'mon, man," he says, squeezing Sam's neck in reassurance. "You can't put your girly side on display when we've got company. What is our guest supposed to think of us?"

Sam lets out a sound, caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and then, as if he hadn't even noticed her presence until now, Sam opens his teary eyes to peek at Mary from over Dean's shoulder.

There is a beat of silence and Mary's heart stands perfectly still.

Then Sam's eyes grow wide.

It all seems to happen so slowly like somebody had flicked a switch and messed with her sense of time.

Her boy- her little Sammy- is looking right at her for the first time in over thirty years.

He slowly moves out of the embrace, fresh tear tracks glistening on his cheeks.

Sniffing, he blinked and looked back up at Dean, eyes wide and filled with a strange kind of happiness.

"Is it over? Are we—is this… h-heaven?"

 **ooOoo**

Shortly after Sam was born, Dean attacked their neighbor.

Now when she says attack, she literally means that Dean- their four-year-old, chubby-cheeked, sweeter-than-sugar- baby boy grabbed a book from their living room table and slammed it down on old Mrs. Doroban's foot.

Mrs. Doroban had screamed and nearly dropped Sammy from where she had rocked him in his arms, cooing and making ridiculous baby noises just a moment before.

Later, when they make Dean sit in a corner for his bad behavior and try to explain to him why it's not okay for him to drop encyclopedias on nice elderly ladies, Dean shows no signs of remorse and takes his punishment without any fuss.

"You won't believe what he said to me," John huffs when he returns back to their bedroom after a long talk with their son.

Mary puts her book aside, sitting up in bed. "What?"

"He said she'd looked and I quote – 'funny' – at Sam and that the noises she made were 'scaring him'."

Mary bites her lower lip to refrain from giggling.

She doesn't want to encourage Dean's behavior, but she can't help but feel a little proud of her boy for single-handedly doing what Mary had secretively always wanted to do.

"You think this is funny?" John gives her a stern look. "Darcy's in the hospital, checking to see if any of her toes are broken because of our four-year-old."

"I'm not supposed to laugh, right?"

"I'm trying to be serious, here, Mare, don't you think Dean takes this whole big-brother-thing a little too far?"

John slips beneath the blankets and Mary settles against his chest. "No... I think it's adorable how protective he is of Sammy."

 **ooOoo**

"Wait, you were shot by a woman of letters?!"

To say Dean was furious would be a massive understatement. It's the first time Mary starts recognizing him as the intimidating hunter he is; he's so tense she can see the cords standing out on his face and neck.

"British chapter," Sam elaborates tiredly, his heavy-lidded eyes still trained on Mary like he was physically unable to look away.

"That _bitch_. Did she say anything else, I mean—"

"She said don't move or I'll shoot," Sam shrugged. "Something along the lines of that."

"And you what— you up and decided not to listen? Did you miss the gun she had trained on your heart? What the hell were you thinking, Sam?"

Sam's looking down at his hands like there was something written on them.

His next words are spoken so low under his breath that neither she nor Dean can hear him.

"What was that?" Dean demands, looking down at Sam like a scolding parent, calling their teenage child out on a stupidity.

Mary's squirming in her seat, feeling a bit helpless as she watches their argument unfold.

"I guess I was thinking..." Sam took a slow breath and shrugged a little, not meeting Dean's gaze. "That it didn't matter. That I had... nothing left to lose."

Dean recoils from the words, the anger slowly melting from his features. "Sammy…"

"I'm gonna go and get some rest..." Sam gets up a little too fast, sways on his feet and Dean is there in a heartbeat, steadying him.

"Hey… careful. I've got you."

Mary watches the way Sam leans into Dean's touch, both of them perfectly attuned to the other; like they'd been holding each other up all their lives.

Mary watches the way Dean's fingers brush over Sam's pulse point- reassuring, gentle- and thinks that maybe they did.

 **ooOoo**

Dean is in the kitchen, making dinner, when Mary slips in, her hair still wet from the shower.

"Hey. You want something to drink, uh… we've got beer and…." he opens their fridge and takes a peek inside. "And beer."

She smiles over at him and takes a seat at the kitchen table. "I'm good, thanks."

He drinks too much, but she doesn't feel like that's a conversation they should have with each other.

Not when there are so many other things to talk about.

"So, crazy day, huh?" he flashes her a smile.

"You could say that, yeah," She walks up to him and looks over his shoulder at the Sandwiches he's making. "What are you making? PB and J?"

Dean averts his gaze, then, like their food choices are something to be ashamed of. "Yeah, I know it's not the Ritz or anything but—"

"Did you cut bananas in them?" Mary frowns at the weird choice of ingredients and then looks at Dean in surprise when a fond smile slowly grows on his lips.

"Secret family recipe," he said softly. "Sam likes it that way."

She should have known that, being Sam's mother.

But she had never lived long enough to find out.

"You know what else is a family recipe?" she says after a pause.

Dean just looks at her in astonishment, eyes filled with so much love it makes her heart burst for a second. "What's that?"

"Dad's infamous kitchen sink stew?"

She's pretty sure he's toying with her.

That stew had always been pretty awful.

"Tomato rice soup," she corrects softly, watching his lips curl into a smile.

 **ooOoo**

When Mary finally gathers enough courage to walk up to Sam's room, carrying a large bowl of steaming tomato rice soup in her hands, she finds him fast asleep, still weakened and exhausted from blood loss, despite whatever the angel had done to fix him.

She puts the food on his nightstand, along with a glass of water and some painkillers.

Then she tugs the blankets up around his tall form, brushing his bangs from his closed lids and leaning down to press a tender kiss against the center of his forehead.

She's about to leave when Sam's hand shoots out to wrap around her wrist, firmly holding her in place.

"Mom?" he whispers like he's afraid he's dreaming.

It's dark, but she can see that his eyes are open.

"Sammy," she says, her tone raw with regret.

Thirty-three years of lost time are weighing her heart down with guilt and self-blame.

"Are you really back?" he whispers like he hadn't allowed himself to even entertain the thought until this point; like somehow, the concept of Mary being alive and with them was too good to be true.

"I think so," she says softly, her lips wobbling up into a reassuring smile.

"Mom," he repeats, the word painful and garbled; years' worth of pain and grief and losses pouring out of him in that one word.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart…" she whispers and just like that she's being pulled down into a bruising hug, Sam's strong arms wrapping around her as he buries his face in her neck and holds on for dear life.

It feels like a part of her soul is slipping back into place.

 **ooOoo**

The next morning, Mary wakes to the sound of her boys' voices.

The enticing smell of bacon and eggs draw her to the kitchen, where she spots her sons sitting across from each other on the table.

The table top is loaded with pancakes and bacon and there's even a rendition of the peanut butter and banana sandwich her boys seem to be so fond of.

They are talking about someone called Amara, a guy named Chuck and some kind of bomb that was meant to go off at some point but _didn't._

Dean's talking with his mouth half-full and Sam's sipping on what his older brother calls a 'frilly-girlish-vanilla-latte' (much to Sam's annoyance).

Sam throws Dean a glower, to which Dean reacts by ruffling Sam's hair.

Sam calls Dean a Jerk.

Dean calls Sam a Bitch.

Mary watches them from her spot in the doorway, not understanding any of it- not one word- like they are talking about some kind of secret code.

And that's when she realizes that her boys might have never actually needed her as much as she thought they did.

Maybe all they ever needed, even long before she passed, was one another.

* * *

Moth-er [muhth-er, muhth-ers]

1\. The person who raises, loves and cares for you; 2. The one who comforts you when you are sick; 3. The one who laughs with you and cries with you; 4. The person who loves you even when you aren't lovable; 5. Someone who exhibits infinit _e patience._

* * *

 **The End.**

* * *

 _So the season finale wasn't what I expected it to be. I love Mary, but I don't want her to become a regular on the show. To me, SPN has just always been about the brothers' relationship and I'd hate for that focus to be shifted. However, I'm excited to get a couple of much-needed scenes between Mary and her sons in the upcoming season- giving the boys some closure. I hope you enjoyed the read! Please let me know how you liked this story! Reviews are much appreciated._


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